Creating a Business Buzz

BM. In just over five years, Infor has grown to become the third largest enterprise software company. Can you describe your strategy?
MF. Back in 2002, Infor was founded to fill a gap in the enterprise software market. You will remember that this was a rough period in the IT industry and there was a lot of uncertainty. At that time, there were essentially two types of enterprise software companies in the market. There was the global provider with generic horizontal products and there was the smaller, niche software provider with deep vertical experience. Customers were forced to make a choice, and neither met their needs. They could select a product from a stable, horizontal provider that required a lot of customization or they could select a product with the functionality that fit their specific needs but from a partner that could not scale and might not be financially viable in the long-term. Infor was created so customers didn’t have to make that choice.

We have built, through acquisition and innovation, a portfolio that spans the entire breadth of enterprise business applications. Our solutions bring customers the best aspects from both worlds: the global scale and stability of the horizontal provider together with business-specific applications and vertical expertise of the niche provider. Our strategy is working. We’re seeing strong growth from both existing and net new customers and we’re a force in the markets where we choose to compete.

BM. How has consolidation affected the business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) markets?
MF. In the BI/PM market, there’s been a land grab for market share. One of the key issues for customers of these acquired solutions is whether there is a long-term commitment to the future of their products. Consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing for customers though. The software market has been ripe for consolidation and, in Infor’s case, the products we acquired have received increased investment and the customer has benefitted. We acquired Extensity and Systems Union in 2006 based on a PM product strategy. While other vendors are deciding how to move forward with their acquisitions, we have since come to the market with an integrated set of PM applications. The importance of integration cannot be understated for these kinds of solutions because the entire value proposition of PM/BI is predicated on giving the customer insight into performance based on a single version of the truth.

BM. There’s always been a gray area between BI and performance management. What’s the difference?
MF. BI has really evolved from its original definition to become more associated with basic query and reporting tools for slicing and dicing data. PM is distinct in that it provides contained applications for specific tasks and to answer business questions. PM applications go that next step to bring context to the business issue someone faces in their role. For example, the VP of Sales can get a revenue report, but what she really needs to know are answers to questions like ‘Which salespersons are underperforming?’ and ‘Which customers are generating the most profit?’ She needs to create sales forecasts based on scenarios and then compare those forecasts to actual results. You can do this with BI tools but it’s difficult and requires a lot of custom work. PM applications are designed to do this.

BM. What is driving adoption of PM applications?
MF. One driver is from companies that have invested in ERP and financial systems but who are frustrated because they still can’t get answers to their most important business questions. That stimulates adoption of PM because it can unlock value from these other systems and provide actionable intelligence. Within organizations, PM is now engaged to support a greater number of roles and that is driving demand. For a long time, PM was driven by the office of finance but we’re seeing that move to other departments such as sales, marketing, human resources and operations. And we are seeing specific roles within those departments use PM applications to get answers to questions within the context of their role. Those answers help decision-makers drive the business forward.

Finally, one of the biggest adoption trends we’re seeing is that more small and mid-sized businesses are moving away from spreadsheet-based analysis and manual processes to the more sophisticated types of analysis and automated processes that PM applications provide.